Addison's disease? Thyroid? I need help!
Posted , 4 users are following.
Hi I'm Rachel, I'm 26 and I have been experiencing severe adrenal insufficiency symptoms for the past few months. Enough to impact my job where I own my own business and constantly have to cancel and reschedule clients or leave work early. I'm waiting to get into an endocrinologist in a few weeks, but in the mean time I wanted to see if anyone can help me pinpoint what might be going on. I feel like a crazy person. So I'll start with my symptoms...
-severe fatigue (being the worst, sometimes I feel like falling asleep while driving even though I go to bed at a decent time and get plenty of sleep...it is worse starting from about mid day until about 6-7 o'clock.)
-dizziness/weakness- (some days are worse than others, but the dizziness comes on randomly, but eating something does seem to help some.)
-salt and sugar craving all the time. (I know with diseases like Addison's disease people seem to lose weight or don't have an appetite, I seem to be hungry more often and seem to be gaining weight.
-not sure if this has anything to do with adrenals but my glands in my neck hurt and feel swollen everyday for the past at least month maybe a month and a 1/2.
-hot flash type of feeling in face. (Feel like I have a fever but I don't)
-cold hands and feet most of the time.(I have previously been diagnosed with anemia.
-severe irritability/agitation
I want to add that I have had 2 cortisol blood tests done which were both abnormal. One was done first thing in the morning and it was too low...my next one was done in the afternoon around 4:00 and it was too high...has anyone had this happen or know what it might mean?
I'm sure there are other symptoms I have had that I can't think of at the moment, but I just want to talk to someone who has been in the same boat as me...thanks a lot!
0 likes, 5 replies
hanny32508 Rach89
Posted
I have both a thyroid problem and an adrenal gland problem. The thing I learned is that thyroid and adrenals have to be in balance with each other.
?Your symptoms could belong to both.
?I recognize the severe irritability, anemia (which often goes with thyroid) headache, never sufficiently rested and wanting to go to sleep half way the day, the dizziness, salt graving. I also wonder how your memory is.
?All I can say at present. I'm not a doctor, but a patient.
Rach89 hanny32508
Posted
Thanks for commenting! I appreciate it. As far as memory goes, I'm super bad about remembering things and I forget things easily. At work I literally have sticky notes all over my desk otherwise I will forget about everything I'm supposed to remember. I get brain fog all the time now. I didn't use to be this way.
hanny32508 Rach89
Posted
The brain fog I found the hardest to live with. Eventually all came back, though from previous years a lot got lost. I'm still in the habit of writing things down in various logbooks.
?The dizzie part is not entirely gone and is resurfacing when I look at glare and glitter for instance. A fine striped or checkered pattern on a shirt will still do it too. But that could be a form of migraine an eye specialist once told me.
janelle81003 Rach89
Posted
jlhinton003 Rach89
Posted
I have hyporeninemic hypoaldosteronism. When I get extremely fatigued or uncontrollably sleepy, it can be a sign of hypo-volemia, a form of dehydration. You should check your heart rate and blood pressure when laying down and then after standing for 3 minutes. If the heart rate goes up more than 20 points when standing, you could be hypo-volemic. Likewise, if your standing blood pressure has a narrow gap between systolic and diastolic, you could be hypo-volemic. Example, standing BP 120 / 90 is borderline hypovolemia. 120-90=30.
25% of 120 = 30. That's the formula. If the gap is smaller than 25% of the systolic, you are hypo-volemic and need fuids, especially electrolytes. When I fall in this range I take 8 oz of water or juice with 1/8 teaspoon of table salt. I hope this helps.